诺奖官网对2016年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖得主大隅良典的采访

摘要: Telephone Interview with Yoshinori Ohsumi, winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Telephone Interview
with Yoshinori Ohsumi

Telephone interview with Yoshinori
Ohsumi following the announcement of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine, 3 October 2016. The interviewer is Adam Smith, Chief Scientific
Officer of Nobel Media.

Yoshinori Ohsumi (YO): Moshi, Moshi, Yoshinori
speaking.

Adam Smith (AS): Hello, Professor Ohsumi.
My name is Adam Smith. I’m calling from the official website for the Nobel
Prize.

YO: Ah ha, yeah.

AS: First of all, our congratulations
on the award of the Nobel Prize.

YO: Thank you so much. Yeah, I was
surprised.

AS: [Laughs] How did you hear the news?

YO: I had a call from Thomas Perlmann.

AS: Yes, Secretary of the Nobel
Committee, yes indeed.

YO: Yeah, Nobel Assembly.

AS: Nobel Assembly, yes. And where
were you when you received the news?

YO: I was in my lab.

AS: And your first reaction?

YO: I heard that, single, only me! It
was also a surprise for me.

AS: It’s true, because it’s rare that
they give the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to just a single Laureate.
What do you think this says about the role of the single researcher these days?

YO: That’s my real surprise because so
many people are now working in the autophagy field.

AS: Autophagy is a huge area. But it’s
not…it’s not something…

YO: Yeah, recently.

AS: Recently, exactly.

YO: Just recently, I think. Yeah.

AS: Very largely because of your work.

YO: Yeah, it’s so, developed fast,
yeah. When I started my work, probably every year 20 or less papers appeared on
autophagy. Now, more than 5,000 or something like that. It’s a huge change
within probably these 15 years or so.

AS: Yeah, a real explosion.

YO: I actually started more than 27
years ago.

AS: It was a good choice of field.

YO: Yeah, yeah, it was lucky. Yeah,
yeast was a very good system and autophagy was a very good topic to work. Still
we have so many questions. Yeah, even now, we have more questions than when I
started.

AS: Once again, it underlines the
power of yeast as an experimental model.

YO: Yeah.

AS: You can do so much with yeast. And
does it surprise you how similar yeast is to ourselves?

YO: I believe there are fundamental
functions of the cells should be conserved from yeast to mammals. So that’s my
belief. But, of course, vacuole is different from lysosome, but I thought that
most fundamental mechanisms must be conserved. That was my assumption when I
started my work.

AS: You sound as if you’re still in a
slight state of shock.

YO: Yeah…mmm.

AS: And will you be coming to Stockholm
in December to receive your award?

YO: Yeah, yeah.

AS: Wonderful. Well, we very much look
forward to meeting you then and to talking further.